Bad Pintle

We had a very brief sail today. The wind ranged from crappy to non-existent, and we could barely get anywhere. At one point the rudder had kicked up a little bit and as I was trying to figure out a better way to fix it than crawling out on the boarding ladder and pushing it down with my foot, I noticed that one of the pintles was mostly gone. We heaved to so I could check it out, and it seemed kind of bad. The main body of the rudder is cast aluminum, and it has a couple nubs on it that hold the pintles. The top one had corroded to the point where the pin was exposed, although it was still holding.

We decided to call it and sailed back in. I tried to find Tom, but he had already gone for the day. It looks like this week’s project will probably be to figure out a solution.

 

"Prepare to fend off the bridge abutment."